Xbox One (Durango) Technical hardware investigation

[Strange]

They are using cloud one way or another.

Not everyone needs to start from a clean slate. There are existing machines/contracts/services to use, and existing operation to run.

I'd say it's harder to do an online service without using cloud tech or platform these days. Everyone is doing it.

Online service is cloud tech. E-mail is cloud tech.

Not harder, more like impossible.

 

[Scott_Arm]

Online service is cloud tech. E-mail is cloud tech.

Not harder, more like impossible.

It is a pretty stupid term. Pretty much any application that runs online could be called The Cloud. The Cloud could basically be a synonym for Internet.

 

[gurgi]

Online service is cloud tech. E-mail is cloud tech.

Not harder, more like impossible.

exactly...i remember gaming on the cloud via a phone placed on top of my modem


it's just marketing...i'll be impressed when the cloud amounts to more than social interaction, and mob pathing

 

[patsu]

Online service is cloud tech. E-mail is cloud tech.

Not harder, more like impossible.

Well, the core cloud technologies allow people to manage and scale their operation easily. Why complain when it's useful everywhere. ^_^

If it lowers the cost and hassle of server operations, the developers can be more bold in experimenting with new ideas.

exactly...i remember gaming on the cloud via a phone placed on top of my modem


it's just marketing...i'll be impressed when the cloud amounts to more than social interaction, and mob pathing

If it's just marketing, NetFlix won't move their infrastructure to EC2. Services and businesses like SOE, XBL, PSN, Origins, Blizzard, Activision, and Steam will of course take a close look.
e.g., It will be interesting to see Gaikai's experience next year.

 

[hesido]

Publishers paying for enhancing single player experiences does not really make sense, at all. A single machine could handle several matches or act as a co-op hub for dozens of players, but it would scale really worse for calculating GI solutions, for example.

 

[Solarus]

so microsoft announced automatic GPU memory paging/tiling announced for W8.1 and Xbox One at their conference today. i remember astrograd showing patents on tiling that ms had. does this have to do with those patents? also without making this into a versus discussion, what would this mean for ps4? if pc and xbox utilize this, wouldn't this mean xbox one games ported to ps4 will struggle? people on gaf are saying it has to do with the prt on amd's card. does ps4 have those?

the esram seems like it would also make this a better fit for xbox one no?

 

[traptd]

Yeah, ps4 will be able to use the partially resident textures because the GPU architecture is the same. This capability isn't new though, it can already be used on the GCN cards via an OpenGL extension that was introduced by AMD last year. But I'm not sure what MS will do for nvidia and pre GCN cards.

 

[XpiderMX]

I don't think that it is exactly the same than partially resident textures, at least no like MS described it.

 

[Solarus]

Yeah, ps4 will be able to use the partially resident textures because the GPU architecture is the same. This capability isn't new though, it can already be used on the GCN cards via an OpenGL extension that was introduced by AMD last year. But I'm not sure what MS will do for nvidia and pre GCN cards.

but how could it have been used when almost all games on pc have been directx base and ms just announced dx support?

with xbox's dmes and esram, would that give it an advantage when dealing with this stuff that ps4 and pc might not have? what about the display planes?

 

[XpiderMX]

but how could it have been used when almost all games on pc have been directx base and ms just announced dx support?

with xbox's dmes and esram, would that give it an advantage when dealing with this stuff that ps4 and pc might not have? what about the display planes?

I guess esram and low latency can give an advantage, because esram can be used like a memory page table.

 

[Cyan]

Great news! Apparently Microsoft are trying to transform the Xbox One into a TBDR machine and are introducing a new technology called Tiled Resources to create fine levels of detail on DirectX 11.2 for Windows 8.1 and Xbox One.

(thanks to catxoperro for the news)

Microsoft revealed a new feature for DirectX 11.2 and Windows 8.1 today called “tiled resources” that enables a graphics card to display a huge amount of detail without overwhelming it with memory-intensive textures.

Tiled resources automatically swaps in the details whenever a gamer is looking closely at it. This should enable developers to pack in tons of lifelike textures. This functionality is only available on Windows 8.1 and next-gen consoles.

“The motivation for doing something like this is to enable you to make games with unprecedented amounts of detail,” Microsoft vice president of Windows Antoine Leblond said in a presentation at the company’s Build conference today in San Francisco.

Leblond demonstrated this technology using a map of Mars that was blurry whenever he zoomed into the landscape. He then turned on tiled resources, which made the minutiae of the surface of Mars pop with crispness.

In a different demo, Leblond zoomed in on a glider to show its rivets and dirt smudges.

This feature should improve visual performance on any PC running Windows 8.1, and it is something developers will have access to on Xbox One.

Read more at http://venturebeat.com/2013/06/26/m...xbox-one-and-windows-8-1/#TwCuik1WHHrEf81O.99

 

[ERP]

It's likely just API support for PRT's

 

[Cyan]

It's likely just API support for PRT's

What does PRT stand for ERP? Just curious...

 

[Dave Baumann]

Partially Resident Textures. And, yes, ERP is correct.

 

[Cyan]

Partially Resident Textures. And, yes, ERP is correct.

Ah, thanks! Megatexturing and Virtual Texturing as Carmack define those techniques can be a reality on next gen consoles then, thanks to this.

I think this technology fits the eSRAM perfectly. I mean Megatextures" (which is basically virtual texturing) could benefit as you might fit the whole screen-space budget of textures into eSRAM.

A really low latency plus high bandwidth to the entire budget of textures for a frame, wouldn't open up some neat scenarios?

32MB of scratchpad memory is enough for a 1080p framebuffer + Z, afaik

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Yeah, as everyone's said. Not TBDR related.

 

[COPS N RAPPERS]

TitanFall devs explain their ideas used for Cloud computing for Xb1.
http://www.gameinformer.com/b/featu...titanfall-taps-the-power-of-the-xbox-one.aspx

At 2.03 they admit that the development software and hardware is still unfinished, and that they're still sending feedback to Microsoft.

 

[MJP]

The API changes they've announced seem to cover the resource management/setup side of PRT, but it looks like they're missing the shader side of it (shader programs getting status codes about whether a page is present in memory).

 

[dagamer]

Anyone surprised we didn't here more developer stuff for Xbox during the Build Day 1 keynote? Day 2 seems more enterprise focused as well, so chances are slim. =/

 

[Kb-Smoker]

Anyone surprised we didn't here more developer stuff for Xbox during the Build Day 1 keynote? Day 2 seems more enterprise focused as well, so chances are slim. =/

A lot of rumors were coming out about it. Was there nothing announced?